BACKGROUND: Adolescent parenting is a common occurrence that providers encounter in healthcare and school settings. Teen mothers face many psychosocial challenges and barriers in achieving their personal goals that place them at risk for interrupted education, subsequent pregnancies, poverty, and health disparities. Fostering self-efficacy and resilience are important components in helping adolescents feel that they can be good parents, attain their personal goals, and enhance their social support. The ability to have good problem-solving skills significantly contributes to an individual’s feeling of competence and autonomy.

METHODS: Using a single pretest-posttest, mixed methods design underserved, low-income adolescent mothers’ (14-19 years) were recruited from a large educational campus in Rochester, NY. Participants received an intervention designed to improve adolescent mother’s problem-solving skills based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It was hypothesized that if the young mothers felt more autonomous, competent, and motivated, then they would be more likely to engage in positive decision-making.

RESULTS: Themes that emerged from the qualitative data include: “Thinking Differently”, “Parenthood”, “Making Decisions”, “Support System”, “Cycle of Teen Childbearing”, “Motivated to do better”, and “Stress”. Participants who completed the project demonstrated improvements in problem solving skills and resilience. Results of this project suggest that the problem-solving tool could provide another approach to helping teen mothers transition to parenthood, complete their education, achieve their personal goals, and make healthier decisions.

CONCLUSIONS: This individualized and developmentally appropriate approach is a promising method to improve teen mothers’ psychosocial outcomes. More research is needed with larger samples to evaluate outcomes of comprehensive, autonomy supportive programs that provide individual interventions focused on decision-making in areas where teen parenting is common.

42nd Biennial Convention 2013 Theme: Give Back to Move Forward. Held at the JW Marriott

Note:

This is an abstract-only submission. If the author has submitted a full-text item based on this abstract, you may find it by browsing the Virginia Henderson Global Nursing e-Repository by author. If author contact information is available in this abstract, please feel free to contact him or her with your queries regarding this submission.

Full metadata record

DC Field

Value

Language

dc.language.iso

en_US

en_GB

dc.type.category

Abstract

en_GB

dc.type

Presentation

en_GB

dc.title

Supporting Teen Mothers’ Healthy Decision Making

en_GB

dc.contributor.author

Barnes, Kamila

en_GB

dc.contributor.department

Epsilon Xi

en_GB

dc.author.details

Kamila Barnes, DNP, FNP-BC, Kamila_Barnes@urmc.rochester.edu

en_GB

dc.identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10755/308136

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dc.description.abstract

<p>Poster presented on: Sunday, November 17, 2013, Saturday, November 16, 2013</p><b>BACKGROUND:</b> Adolescent parenting is a common occurrence that providers encounter in healthcare and school settings. Teen mothers face many psychosocial challenges and barriers in achieving their personal goals that place them at risk for interrupted education, subsequent pregnancies, poverty, and health disparities. Fostering self-efficacy and resilience are important components in helping adolescents feel that they can be good parents, attain their personal goals, and enhance their social support. The ability to have good problem-solving skills significantly contributes to an individual’s feeling of competence and autonomy. <p><b>METHODS: </b>Using a single pretest-posttest, mixed methods design underserved, low-income adolescent mothers’ (14-19 years) were recruited from a large educational campus in Rochester, NY. Participants received an intervention designed to improve adolescent mother’s problem-solving skills based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT). It was hypothesized that if the young mothers felt more autonomous, competent, and motivated, then they would be more likely to engage in positive decision-making. <p class="APA"><b>RESULTS: </b>Themes that emerged from the qualitative data include: “Thinking Differently”, “Parenthood”, “Making Decisions”, “Support System”, “Cycle of Teen Childbearing”, “Motivated to do better”, and “Stress”. Participants who completed the project demonstrated improvements in problem solving skills and resilience. Results of this project suggest that the problem-solving tool could provide another approach to helping teen mothers transition to parenthood, complete their education, achieve their personal goals, and make healthier decisions. <p class="APA"><b>CONCLUSIONS: </b>This individualized and developmentally appropriate approach is a promising method to improve teen mothers’ psychosocial outcomes. More research is needed with larger samples to evaluate outcomes of comprehensive, autonomy supportive programs that provide individual interventions focused on decision-making in areas where teen parenting is common.

en_GB

dc.subject

Adolescent parenting

en_GB

dc.subject

Teen mothers

en_GB

dc.subject

Autonomy support

en_GB

dc.date.available

2013-12-19T17:27:22Z

-

dc.date.issued

2013-12-19

-

dc.date.accessioned

2013-12-19T17:27:22Z

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dc.conference.date

2013

en_GB

dc.conference.name

42nd Biennial Convention

en_GB

dc.conference.host

Sigma Theta Tau International, the Honor Society of Nursing

en_GB

dc.conference.location

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

en_GB

dc.description

42nd Biennial Convention 2013 Theme: Give Back to Move Forward. Held at the JW Marriott

en_GB

dc.description.note

This is an abstract-only submission. If the author has submitted a full-text item based on this abstract, you may find it by browsing the Virginia Henderson Global Nursing e-Repository by author. If author contact information is available in this abstract, please feel free to contact him or her with your queries regarding this submission.

en_GB

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